A Chanel couture show is like taking a magical mystery tour of life in Paris, with Karl Lagerfeld as our guide. We have sat in swimming pools and equestrian centres to watch the models, and yesterday Lagerfeld took us back to school - an old boys' lycee on the Left Bank, with a cloistered central sports yard where the models paraded.
In keeping with the setting, models wore their hair in black hairbands and ribbon bows - like modern Gigis, dressed up in their mothers' clothes and trying to master walking in their first pair of high heels.
There was an enchanting girlish spirit to the collection with the rounded necklines, apron tunics and belted frock coats, but the luxuriousness of the tweeds and silks and the lavish jewellery left the school-yard far behind. Great baroque jewels with rings large enough to conceal three fingers, pearl toe rings and large brooches smothered the grown-up boxy tweed jackets and skinny trousers. The tailoring was as light and easy to wear as knitwear and came in rich prune, heather, olive, burgundy and rust tweeds.
There were references to Coco in a white cardigan-style tweed trousersuit, edged with a navy beaded trim, and the belted black frock coats with white cuffs and jewelled buckles. The belted frock coat over wide-legged trousers was a key look of the collection, softening the formality of a Chanel suit with the jacket flaring from the waist down to just above the knee.
Even Chanel's little black dress came with trousers, looking sweet and girlish. In fact, the look cleverly translated the current trend for baby-doll silhouettes by putting brief chiffon dresses with flattering asymmetric hems over chiffon trousers.
Pretty ruffles skirted the hems of tunics and one outfit came with an amazing degrade beading as the fabric morphed from nude chiffon to a mass of caviar beading. Chanel conjured up the sort of enchanting dressing-up box any woman or child would love to be let loose with.